62 Why Centers for Pluralism? 63 Why Centers for Pluralism? by Julia Kharashvili Julia Kharashvili is director of the Association of IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) Women, based in Tbilisi, Georgia, one of three coordi- nators of IDEE’s Networking Women in the Caucasus program. Trainers Julia Kharashvili, Muborak Tashpulatova, and Heba el Shazli, currently at the National Democratic Institute in Washington, D.C. Credit: IDEE In looking back, I try to identify how our NGO, the Association of IDP Women, developed and what conditions were necessary for its successful work. Our organization was created in 1995, but before this our women already had been working as volunteers – helping children, trying to normalize their lives, and helping just to survive after a severe war had forced tens of thousands The Networking Women in the Caucasus program, modeled on the CfP program, helped women of people to flee their homes in Abkhazia. We started as a small voluntary NGO leaders from Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia to work together across borders and meet with organization, without structure, without a clear mission. We just wanted to help. colleagues from Eastern Europe and the U.S. Above, participants at one of three networking meet- Step by step, our group started to carry out more professional activities. The first ings in Lekhani, Georgia. Credit: IDEE was a program of psychological and social rehabilitation for IDP women and I heard about the Centers for Pluralism for the first time after meeting Beth children in communal centers where persons displaced by armed conflict peo- Ciesielski from Bridges for Education, who visited Tbilisi after participating in ple found temporary shelter. the CfP meeting in Baku in 1997. She organized summer camps for teaching We tried to learn from different organizations to increase our capacity to conversational English and was interested in our youth camps. She had heard help others. Many professional psychologists and psychiatrists assisted us to about our initiative from several participants that attended the CfP meeting, understand better what should be done and how. including Rusiko Kalichava, an activist from Zugdidi, and a representative of the What became our signature program were peace camps for children from NGO “Atinati.” Nothing came of our meeting, unfortunately. conflict zones. In talking with women, we learned that their main interests were Several months passed. The situation in the conflict zone worsened; each day programs for building peace and programs for children’s development. We con- was bringing bad news. Very soon military actions started, and in the end of May cluded that children are the best messengers of peace and that through children’s 1998 a new wave of internally displaced Georgians appeared in Western Georgia dialogue we can achieve a dialogue for adults. For this program, we needed on the border with Abkhazia, in the Zugdidi district. Our Association had already international contacts, since organizing a meeting of children from conflict enough experience to understand that the sooner psychological assistance could zones was possible only in a third country. Through the network of peace be provided to displaced children and women, the more chances they would have activists in Eastern Europe (facilitated by the Berghof Center for Constructive to cope with the trauma without permanent or dramatic consequences. Under the Conflict Management) we found very good partners in the Center for Open U.N. umbrella, we established a coalition of three NGOs that had experience in Education in Bulgaria, with whom we have continued to work now for eight emergency assistance. But for successful work we needed a local partner in the years. Our programs have become known not only in Georgia but elsewhere. area of the displacement itself. I remembered hearing about Rusiko Kalichava, 64 Julia Kharashvili Why Centers for Pluralism? 65 Armenian, Azeri, and Georgian participants in the seminar demonstrate different forms of national and ethnic dancing, joined by (center row, from left) Muborak Tashpulatova of Uzbekistan, Dilara the participant from that Baku CfP meeting, and decided to talk with her. She Setveliyeva of Crimea and Lecha Ilyasov of the Latta Center for Pluralism in Grozny. immediately agreed to support our program. With the local NGO Atinati we Credit: IDEE started a training program for volunteers, “helpers,” who received intensive training how to help traumatized people and how to provide direct assistance to victims. More than 10,000 internally displaced people were assisted through this program and a group of trained “helpers” continues to work with IDPs in different programs of psycho-social assistance and income generation. Atinati became one of our closest partners in Western Georgia. This joint program not only helped IDPs but also both of our organizations’ development and, later on, that of many others. All this emerged as a result of one CfP meet- ing which we did not even attend! In 1999, I was invited for the first time to attend a CfP Meeting, this time in Brasov, Romania. I had participated in many different meetings and networks before this, but what was new and very interesting for me at the CfP meeting was its open exchange of opinions, sometimes very different, and that organiz- ers brought together people with very different views. Some of the participants definitely had different and even confrontational views than the organizers. In the past, I had seen how people in charge of a network always tried to make sure its members had the same views and there was no real debate. In Brasov, I witnessed really pluralistic discussions and everybody had the same right to talk. Another thing which surprised me was the presence of representatives from different parties to conflicts, especially from the Balkans. We already had some experience of working with NGOs from conflict zones in the South Caucasus countries and knew how much effort is needed to bring people from opposite sides of a conflict together and to involve them in civilized discussion without accusations and references to the painful past. Here, at the CfP meeting, people were talking constructively, trying to identify problems and ways which could help build democracy in Eastern Europe and identify civil society’s role in it. Through the Centers for Pluralism, we found many new friends in Romania, Poland, Serbia, Croatia. The CfP network gave us a chance to work with our friends from Armenia and Azerbaijan. We became more familiar with problems in Belarus and found new friends there. Especially I would like to write about our Crimean Tatar friends, because they became our partners in what for us is a very important peace camp proect. The importance of the Centers for Pluralism Newsletter must be empha- sized. It includes many useful addresses, basic information, and possibilities to share experiences. Once, when meeting with a very important donor from the UK for the first time, I was told “Oh, I know you, I read your article in the Centers for Pluralism Newsletter. Both versions, English and Russian, have been very helpful and assisted in the creation of a new network. 66 Julia Kharashvili Why Centers for Pluralism? 67 The Centers for Pluralism gave us also an opportunity to enlarge our work. joined the network. During the last year, the Network included publication of As I wrote above, for a number of years, the Association of IDP Women has the newsletter Working Together in the Caucasus (in four languages: Georgian, organized peace camps in Bulgaria for children from the conflict zones. In these Armenian, Azeri, and Russian). It also included organizing citizens’ forums camps Georgian, Abkahzian, and Ossetian children had a chance to live togeth- (town hall meetings) in three countries on topical issues facing the community, er, to participate in training and entertainment activities, and to learn more about such as youth and unemployment, women in politics, local authorities and each other and become friends. Our partners for this project were trainers from NGOs, etc. With the facilitation of IDEE, we also held a training workshop in the Open Education Center in Bulgaria. But our children were growing up and negotiations with the participation of trainers from the U.S. Institute of Peace needed a different level of dialogue. So, we designed another step in the pro- (USIP), Ray Caldwell and Anne Henderson, organized for thirty leaders from gram – youth dialogue for peace in the Crimea. The program was initiated by the South Caucasus. U.N. volunteers in Georgia, but involved also individuals from Armenia, At the same time, members of the network activated their own work in the Azerbaijan, and Ukraine. community and helped create a lot of branch and regional organizations, both in Our colleagues from the Crimean Teachers Council brought a deep com- registering them with the authorities and in helping initiate their work. This passion to these youth, who from childhood had been suffering from the conse- cooperation of South Caucasus NGOs, which became obvious and clear for the quences of war. At the same time, a lot of knowledge, wisdom, and humor be- members of the network, is still very unique in our region. These are initiatives came part of everyday life in the camp. Dilara Setveliyeva, president of the that need to be supported. Each year, the network’s activities allowed us to Council, had participated many times as a trainer in workshops for Georgian include new members from different regions, political and civic movements, women leaders as past members of the Women in the Caucasus network that parties and people with different views and backgrounds who agreed on the idea had been built under the IDEE umbrella over the previous three years. Another of cooperating for peace and democracy.